Abductions & Neuroscience [was: Sakulich And The

From: Carol Rainey <csrainey2.nul>
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2011 13:16:30 -0500
Archived: Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:54:16 -0500
Subject: Abductions & Neuroscience [was: Sakulich And The
>From: Kevin Randle <KRandle993.nul>>To: post.nul>Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2011 15:16:42 EST>Subject: Re: Sakulich And The Betty & Barney Hill Case
<snip>
>Gildas, List, All,>I believe the argument was that Budd Hopkins had said there were>no traditional sci-fi gods or demons on which the abductees>could draw for their inspiration. I, and by I, I mean Russ>Estes, Bill Cone and I, suggested that popular literature,>movies, and science fiction had all drawn on the idea of alien>creatures abducting people. The really bad move, "Killers from>Space" contained the whole of the abduction scenario from the>big-eyed aliens, the unexplained scar, to seeing his beating>heart held over his chest and so on. This was 1953... and yes, I>know that some of the elements are different. The alien eyes,>while big, are not black and tear-drop shaped.
<snip>
>So, the point was that alien abduction had been described in the>literature and the movies. There was plenty of pop cultural>icons on which to draw. The abduction phenomenon did not develop>in an information-free environment as had been suggested, and>that there were sources for Barney Hill's descriptions of the>aliens that preceded his discussions with Dr. Simon while under>the influence of hypnotic regression.>So, while you might not find the information probable, it is>important to understanding what is going on. Dismissing it>doesn't change the relevance of it.>Kevin
Hello, Kevin and Others,
This is increasingly an important area to consider in terms of
what we believe we know about people's abduction experiences and
how we "learned" that information. In other word, how do
abduction researchers know what they set out as fact?
For several decades, interested parties and serious researchers
have debated whether the alien abduction meme or prototype grew
slowly in popular consciousness out of a growing exposure to
consistent media- generated images - or whether it sprung, full-
blown, from the minds, i.e., memories, of people literally going
through the physical experience of being taken into craft by
alien beings.
There's now another factor that any abduction researcher must
be conversant in - that's neuroscience. Within the past five
years, researchers of modern neuroscience are almost unanimous
in agreement that most human cognition occurs _below_ the level
of consciousness. One researcher, Timothy Wilson, a psychologist
at UVA, summarizes it this way: The human mind takes in about 11
million pieces of information a minute, although the mind is
only _consciously_ aware of about 40 such items.
This means that most of what we actually take in happens far
below our level of awareness. We are consciously aware of only a
small fraction of the information that influences us at a deep,
buried, and profound level. The second main finding of this
research is that we're very social creatures and "our minds are
fed and informed beneath the level of awareness by these mental
loops, by social contagions".
http://tinyurl.com/4joj5qj
What does this have to do with alien abduction research? It
means there's even more reason to be careful about direct
interpretation of a hypnotically recalled memory - or even of
memory of a dream or event. And even more reason to question if
Betty Hill or anyone else would even consciously be _aware_ of
any media or cultural image they'd seen.
Given what we're just beginning to understand about how the
human mind takes in and retrieves information, it's extremely
naive to say that if a person recalls an extraterrestrial
floating him/her into a hovering craft, that that is exactly
what happened at the event level of reality.
That certainly doesn't mean it's impossible (she stated
emphatically, for the few who seek to denigrate a message by
calling the messenger "a debunker". The horror!)
Nobody's lying when they recall this (well, very few). But we
must become increasingly aware that even if a person doesn't
recall the source of the image, (given the 11 million inputs per
minute!) that doesn't mean we should accept it at face value.
Because the person is clearly earnest, is clearly deeply
emotional, those are simply very poor indicators of event level
reality.
Hopkins and Jacobs often indicate that a subject's earnestness,
no apparent motive to fabricate, and deep emotional content
cause them to believe the narrative. Jim Mortellaro, Bina
"Beanie" Bean, Linda Cortile, "Dora" - they all displayed these
traits. The level to which these people spoke what was true
about their experience or were faking it still has to be
resolved.
This is far from a simple phenomenon to study. We have no idea
what masses of images, vague concepts, sensory input with deep
emotional resonance are kicking around down there in the
invisible unconscious of our very human selves.
Cheers,
Carol Rainey
www.carolrainey.com
917-545-2381
Listen to 'Strange Days... Indeed' - The PodCast
At:
http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/sdi/program/
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